When Abbott arrived at Hopper's studio on Washington Square North, she was intending to use some of his paintings as a background. Instead, Hopper's wife suggested that she pose him in front of the bare, worn walls of the studio itself. In the resulting image, Hopper is an austere, angular figure. At the left stands a potbellied stove in front of a fireplace; at the right, the spokes of Hopper's etching press, which he also used as a makeshift hat rack, intrude into the composition.